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Are Citizens’ homeowner insurance rates too high?

If approved by state regulators, the average decrease would be 6.3 percent for standard homeowner policies. For Palm Beach County residents, the average rate drop would be 7 percent. (Those with only windstorm coverage won’t benefit).

It’s the first rate decrease by the often-criticized insurer of last resort since Florida was clobbered by four storms in 2004, prompting years of skyrocketing rates and the disappearance of most private insurance providers for homes along coastal South Florida.

State leaders worry about Citizens’ capacity to levy assessments on private insurance customers, including car and boat owners, to cover losses after storms.

But Citizens has built up a $7 billion surplus. As The Post’s Charles Elmore reported, it would not need to levy assessments even if there were a repeat of the 2004 hurricane season.

And a return of 1992’s devastating Hurricane Andrew would require small assessments only on current Citizens customers.

With the announcement has come much of the usual fretting about Citizens’ prices undercutting private insurers, who state leaders want to take over more of Florida’s anemic homeowner insurance market. Lowering Citizens’ rates could make private companies less competitive, insurers argue.

But the size of Citizens’ customer base has already dropped considerably in recent years, from 1.3 million in 2008 to 925,000 today.

Did you know that hurricanes can be controlled? The US government has been doing it since 1947 with Operation Cirrus. Operation Stormfury showed how they can be controlled be dumping dry ice or other chemicals into them. See google and don;t believe it was a failure.

Good: CONTROLLING HURRICANES See 2004 Scientific American edition with that title and read about the three methods that can be used to control them.

There is no need for hurricane insurance because they can be controlled, but the government looks the other way. Meanwhile the insurance companies are getting rich selling these policies.

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